


Renewal

by Sarea Okelani (sarea)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarea/pseuds/Sarea%20Okelani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old men share regrets, the warmth of a fire, and a bacon sandwich that doesn't get eaten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renewal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for elenalink as part of the dearsanta exchange on LiveJournal. She mentioned that she enjoyed Snape/Lupin stories, with angst and happy endings. : ) Thank you to my beta reader, who shall remain nameless. For now. Okay, it was Jade.

Renewal  
by Sarea Okelani

~*~

The glow of a fire could be seen just under the ajar door, the flickering light serving as a feeble welcome to the man who stood just outside. After a moment he pushed the door open lightly with his shoulder, so as not the startle the room's sole occupant.

Severus Snape sat in one of the two armchairs before the fire, staring into the flames that crackled and burned with low-banked intensity. From the ashes that could be seen in the grate, he'd been there for awhile.

"I've brought you something to eat," Lupin said, shutting the door behind him with his foot. He carried a plate containing a bacon sandwich in one hand and a mug of hot tea in the other.

Snape did not acknowledge the other man's words, but continued to stare into the fire, as if he were looking for answers only it could provide.

After placing the offerings on the small table between the chairs, Lupin settled into the unoccupied seat. The two men sat together in companionable silence for a few minutes, listening to wood burn and the wind howl its presence just behind the windows.

It was a dark night, in more ways than one, and from Snape's countenance, it was clear he was feeling it in every one of his bones.

"When did we become old men?" Snape's voice sounded raspy and cynical, even for him.

Lupin smiled faintly. "Old men? Speak for yourself."

Instead of the scowl and rejoinder that Lupin had expected – hoped for -- Snape only turned his head, meeting Lupin's eyes at last, and he looked so bleak, so despairing, that Lupin dropped his brevity. "Summer last year," he answered.

A bark of something that vaguely resembled laughter escaped Snape's throat; Lupin had clearly managed to startle him. "Do you have the exact hour, or just a rough estimate?" he asked dryly.

Lupin was glad to see some of the lines around the other man's eyes ease. "That's when it happened for me. That's when I became an old, old man. I saw the look on your face at the funeral; the same is true for you, I think."

Snape's eyes looked far away and it seemed he was almost talking to himself when he murmured, "I had thought myself an old man before then, but I hadn't realized..." He stopped and took a long, ragged breath. "You're probably right," he said, sounding as if it pained him very much indeed to say the words.

Lupin nodded. "Witnessing the burial of one so young, someone you'd known since they were a child, still, in many respects, _saw_ as a child..."

"None of them are children any longer," Snape said, his voice suddenly hard. "Voldemort has made certain of that. He cements it further with every passing day. I don't know if there is a child left in this world."

Softly, Lupin pointed out, "You obviously thought there was at least one more."

Snape stiffened at the reminder, his expression closing off. "I was mistaken."

"Or you want to be," said Lupin, and he knew he had struck a nerve when Snape's knuckles turned white from holding the arm of his chair too tightly. He sighed, then picked up the cup of tea he had brought and took a sip. If Snape wasn't going to drink it, there was no sense in wasting its heat. Lupin wanted that momentary warmth to fuel him for what he had to say. "Severus..." he began quietly, putting the cup back into its saucer, "I hope you're not blaming yourself."

"Who else is there to blame?" Snape shot back.

Though the other man's tone was deprecating, Lupin would not allow himself to be provoked. "Sometimes, things just are. You know this as well as I."

"That is the worst case of blame shirking I've ever heard. Nothing just _is_. There is a cause, and an effect. It is a truth of life, an unalterable fact even _you_ cannot deny."

"What fatalistic justification. But then, you always were a scientist," Lupin mused. "Unable or unwilling to see the world beyond the top of your tallest phial. Tell me, Severus, do you truly believe that anything you've done caused these circumstances?"

"Perhaps it's not what I've done, but what I didn't do," Snape said, bitterness hollowing his voice.

Lupin studied the glossy dark head that was tilted in a posture of defeat. "Decided to try a shade of 'martyr,' have we?"

Snape's head snapped up so he could glare at his companion. "I could have – should have – made more of an effort. Now he is a ruin."

"You give yourself too much credit," Lupin said mildly. "He was not yours to mold, nor yours to ruin."

"He was in my care. I had the opportunity to make him see the right of it—"

"_Make_ him see? Do you hold so much conviction in your own powers of persuasion, then?"

"—but I let him slip out of my grasp," Snape finished as though Lupin hadn't spoken.

"You've had many students over the years," Lupin pointed out. "You've had the unenviable task of facing some of them in battle; we all have. I've known you a long time. I've never seen you falter. Why is this one different? Why do you feel so strongly?"

Instead of answering the question, Snape turned dark eyes on his companion. "You haven't known me a 'long time,' Lupin. Simply because we were adolescent boys together, and have now been forced to consort civilly as old men," here he stopped pointedly, "does not then follow that you _know_ me."

"It's true; we've all of us changed. We're not as young as we once were. Hopefully we're also not quite so stupid." The tone of his voice implied that at least for _some_ people, that fact remained to be seen.

"We knew the danger. He was in our grasp. And we didn't take advantage of it."

"What would we have done? He was a child. He had a father. He was raised a certain way and is a product of that weaning. You cannot ignore these details and pretend that you had the power to save him and simply chose not to exercise it. The blame is not to be laid at your door." Lupin raised his palms entreatingly, then let them drop to his lap.

Snape looked at him sharply. "I suppose you would not blame yourself if something happened to the Potter boy? If he got himself killed, or captured, or branded with the Dark Mark?"

"We're talking about two completely different situations," Lupin said firmly. "Harry has no parent but the transient figures that pass through his life, none of whom can ever truly be his father."

Snape's lips twisted. "Better to be fatherless than the son of a monster."

Lupin inclined his head. "Or better to have been loved, however misguided, than spending a lifetime wondering what your life might have been?"

"Better to have a lifetime to wonder," Snape said quietly.

Lupin understood that mere words would not heal his friend's wounds, but perhaps they would provide him comfort and solace when he was ready. "Do you not see that it was an impossibility then for you to have done anything? An impossibility for him?" Lupin was gentle in the rebuke. "He would not have heard you. His ears were pitched to someone else's tune, another piper whose song rose above everything else. . But now things might be different. He could reform and see that the Dark Lord's ways, his father's ways, are not necessarily his chosen path. You can show him. He _is_ just a boy, Severus. You changed, and you were already a man. Think of the opportunities that lie ahead."

"Lupin, are you trying to say 'have hope' or some such rot?" Snape said tiredly, but the line of his mouth was not quite so grim.

"Only if it's working."

After a moment, Snape placed his work-roughened hand over Lupin's. "Thank you." It was a simple sentiment, but Lupin heard all the words Snape did not say.

A sharp rapping sound jerked their hands apart. It took Lupin and Snape, engrossed as they were, a moment to realize that the noise signaled a presence on the other side of the door, made by someone determined to enter. And indeed, by the time Lupin had opened his mouth to issue an invitation, the knob had turned and the door was already opening.

"Yes, Harry, what is it?" Lupin asked when the intruder was revealed. He considered Harry a surrogate son, the one he would probably never have. And as much as he enjoyed it, he'd give up every moment if he could give James or Sirius back to Harry. Whether Harry considered him a surrogate father Lupin did not know; he hoped so, but it didn't really matter. They had a bond, and Lupin loved him as if he were his own flesh and blood.

"It's Malfoy," Harry said, slightly breathless as if he had run from his previous location.

"Well, spit it out, Potter," Snape said impatiently. His gruffness belied the quickening of his heartbeat, which beat an unnatural staccato.

"It's his Dark Mark, sir," Harry said. He'd never quite gotten out of the habit of calling Snape either "sir" or "Professor," though their Hogwarts days were long behind them. They both preferred it that way. "He started clutching his arm as if it hurt him about an hour ago, but didn't say anything. Now it's gotten so bad he's just screaming." Harry swallowed, clearly disturbed by what he had seen. Lupin was fiercely glad for it; he never wanted Harry to become immune to another human being's suffering, not even – no, especially – someone like Draco Malfoy, who was Harry's opposite in nearly every way. But their situations could easily have been reversed, had it not been for the fickle circumstances of birth. Draco Malfoy was everything Harry could have been but was not; Lupin would have said the same thing about himself and Snape, once. "He's asking for you." Harry now looked at Snape. "Is there anything you can do?"

"Voldemort is calling him, and punishing him for his disobedience," Snape said shortly. "What I can do is purely a temporary measure. It will dull his pain, but also his mind. He won't be able to be interrogated." Snape looked grim, staring Harry down challengingly.

Harry gave a slight nod. "Do it, then. He's not much good to us like this." It was only the truth spoken aloud, but each man cringed from it for his own reasons. The truth, bluntly related, can often be the most cutting of all weapons.

"Thank you, Harry. We'll be right there," Lupin said.

Harry looked from one man to the other before nodding and retreating from the room.

"I'll need your assistance," Snape said abruptly. "If we don't have the appropriate ingredients we'll send Ginny Weasley—"

"She's no longer based at Grimmauld," Lupin reminded, eyeing Snape's preoccupied look and jerky movements. "And hasn't been for months."

"Well, one of the other ones, then," Snape snapped. "Does it really matter?"

Lupin was quiet. Then, "He asked for you."

Snape did not respond.

"Is it what you wanted?"

"He asked for me because I can ease his suffering," Snape said curtly.

"He asked for you because somewhere, somehow, you did make a difference to him," Lupin said. "He wasn't completely Lucius's son after all." Snape opened his mouth to interrupt, but Lupin ignored this and continued, "And if you can't see that, if you need more proof, I know Draco will confirm my beliefs soon enough." Lupin smiled in a bland way that was eerily reminiscent of the late Albus Dumbledore.

"I think I liked it better when we were bitter enemies," Snape said.

"We weren't always bitter enemies," Lupin grinned. "There was that one time, behind the Quidditch sheds..."

"Hold your tongue!" Snape said, his thunderous visage unable to mask the dull flush creeping up his neck. "Your sense of timing is atrocious."

"Not always," Lupin responded mildly.

Snape looked at the other man with suspicion, but could not find anything – at the moment – to be suspicious of. He moved to exit the room, but it was a futile gesture with Lupin standing in the way. "Do. You. _Mind?_" Snape said between clenched teeth.

Lupin stepped aside. "Not at all, dear Severus. You know your every wish is my joy to fulfill." He held out an arm, however, blocking Snape when he started forward again. "_As long as_ you understand: I know the person you once were. I know the person you are now. I know the heart that beats in your chest." Lupin rested his hand on Snape's shoulder, then moved down and squeezed his friend's hand. "Never doubt it. I know you."

After a moment, his spine still rigid, Snape gave a stiff nod. "Insufferable pillock," he muttered as he swept past Lupin out the door.

"Unrepentant git," Lupin called after him. He followed Snape as they wound their way to the room that served as a makeshift potions lab.

After all, he would be needed.


End file.
